Thread by @MetroUK

I'm A Celebrity has used live animals in trials since its inception in 2002. They’ve always been pretty gross - but now their inclusion has become a point of contention.

What would a series without them look like?
trib.al/euNXqS5

Besides welfare worries, many are tired of tuning in and seeing the same animal-led trials all the time, with dwindling ratings suggesting it is high time for a shake-up.

What’s it like for contestants when things go wrong?

Olympic javelin thrower Fatima Whitbread was a campmate on the 11th series of I’m A Celebrity in 2011.

That year, a cockroach got stuck up inside Fatima’s nose during the Fill Your Face trial.

‘Because my chin was already on the lower part of the helmet, it left no room for the cockroaches and one went straight up my nose and that was that,’ Fatima recalls.

‘For a whole minute, I was trying to snort him down.’

The ordeal was massively edited down for television, with Fatima telling us the whole thing painstakingly went on for an entire 40 minutes.

Despite the ordeal, Fatima believes that the use of animals on I’m A Celebrity is an integral part of the show - and would do it again.

What could I’m A Celebrity look like without animals?

Shayna Waldman is a development and production executive at the team behind shows, such as Ninja Warrior and The Floor Is Lava, and is no stranger to inventing crazy fun trials.

She notes that I’m A Celebrity’s animal-centred trials have either a scare or gross element to them, which can easily be revamped to create the same scare tactic or fear factor without using animals.

‘One show that does that really well is Taskmaster,’ she tells Metro.

‘They make up some great food challenges. There was one with Romesh Ranganathan having to finish a watermelon in a certain amount of time and he was still throwing up, so you’re still disgusted.'

‘For the scare element, they did another one where contestants had to guess the content of the pie. It was a hot toothpaste pie. There is an element of fear in that because you don’t know what you’re about to eat.’

Coming up with animal-free trials wouldn’t even take that long.

’It’s not a long timescale,’ Shayna stresses. ‘Producers can sit in a room for an hour and come up with a bunch of new challenges.'

‘It’s actually harder to do all of these contests and challenges with animals’

While Fatima reckons that the use of animals is an integral part of I’m A Celebrity and the show would not be the same without the live creature element, Shayna argues that the format is stale and expected

This year, I’m A Celebrity's ratings dropped to their lowest since 2014. Surely now would be the best time to think about shaking things up - and the removal of animals the perfect way to do it?
metro.co.uk/2021/12/12/im-…